Everyone may not agree with me but I think that outside of college basketball and football, where the recruiting services are just so extensive and kids get so much exposure, other college sports should be ashamed and potentially not allowed to pull offers to kids. The coach in this case told her she was safe after getting hired (this was his chance to say they didn't want her), and she's been committed since she was an underclassmen and off schools recruiting radar (where as in cbb & cfb kids never stop getting talked to) so now she's shot outta luck. I'm sure she'll eventually land somewhere but agree terrible for future tech softball recruits anywhere near her area.

You must not get around much. There are a lot of worse accents to grate on the ear, Southwest Virginia, West Virginia and Eastern Tennessee provide nearby examples. Besides, Click and Clack were fine examples of the lyrical side of the Boston accent, and I certainly never tired of hearing them speak.

OK. Meet me anywhere in Pew-lasky in an hour and it's on. You'll know me on sight, I'm 6'6, weigh two eighty and will be packin' serious heat in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. Or, I'll buy you a beer instead and together we can make fun of E Tenn accents for fun. s/, of course.

Even though I still consider myself a Virginia boy, I've lived up on Cape Cod for the past 22 years. My gf, who is as classy and gorgeous as they come, grew up in the projects of Southie (her Mom even worked for Whitey). She has a thick, but adorable accent.

As classy as she is, my gf would cut you to ribbons for making fun of her heritage. /s. Well, sorta.

The coach in this case told her she was safe after getting hired (this was his chance to say they didn't want her)

Sounds more like they ran into each other at a tournament. Doesn't sound like they had a lot of contact.

As the coach's hiring was announced on May 31st, and the letter was received on July 23rd, they did let her in a reasonably timely fashion, even if a letter wasn't the right way to handle it. You don't think the coach should have 30 days to look over the team roster before making decisions?

I don't like the idea of a coach being able to dump players because they don't fit their vision. A coach should accept or decline the job with the caveat of keeping the existing players/commitments as long as they're not trouble makers. They can start recruiting their type of players, but should honor current players and commitments.

I get your heartburn, but look at it bigger picture. As much as it sucked for her to have an offer pulled the summer before her senior year, it is still FAR better for her to know that now while she still has the freedom to go somewhere else. If coaches were forced to take/keep players that don't fit their plan for the program, sure, it wouldn't be as jarring to the player in the short term, but in the long-run it would be a large disservice to them because they probably are not going to play and then get hung up in the NCAA rules on the 5-year eligibility clock and transfer rules.

Edit: I will add, from the VT side, there is a better way to handle this than sending an email.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but if I was an AD, and my new coach came in and wiped his ass with a commitment that had been made years ago, knowing this girl has been preparing for your school all that time, we'd be having some words. I don't care how talented or not these players are, it's completely fucked that coaches can just make a life changing decision for them through absolutely no fault of their own. And spare me the, "that's just how the system works," argument. We're talking softball, not football or basketball. Though, I'd argue it's fucked up in those sports as well.

"How the ass pocket will be used, I do not know. Alls I know is, the ass pocket will be used."
- The BoD

Look at this forum. Fuente has been here, what, three years? With two pretty decent recruiting classes under his belt and a winning record. And there are people already being very critical. Look at the recruiting post. People are going ballistic over one recruit, a year out, naming UNC as his leader.

So I'd say the incoming softball coach does get to review his future recruits and the verbal offers made by the previous coach and make adjustments.

It's disingenuous to use it as a reason why people should not be upset as it implies that simply having a winning record is a positive. We have gotten markedly worse each year. That is a potential reason to be upset, regardless of if you agree or not.

It's not disingenuous to introduce facts. It's disingenuous to distort them in an attempt to mislead.

Here's Fuente's record at VT:

2016 10-4
2017 9-4
2018 6-7

Now the quiz. Which of the following statements is disingenuous?

1. Fuente has a winning record.

2. We have gotten markedly worse each year.

One of those is a fact. One is an interpretation. Did we really get markedly worse in Fuente's second year?

But the real point was that fans really, REALLY care about the win-loss record. Do you care that Fuente made some roster changes, or that some players have left the program? Or do you care that VT didn't win enough games this year? I'm not saying people shouldn't be upset, I'm just pointing out that they are.

But like I said, the overall point was that the coach has to make adjustments to the roster in order to win games. That's his job. And if he doesn't do that, his job will be gone. So a college sports coach can't afford to carry players he doesn't think will help him win.

So if you're a coach, and the previous coach gave a verbal commitment to eventually offer a scholarship to a player you don't think you'll use three years ago, you need to honor that for the next four years?

To me, that's not a "end justifies the means" thing, it's more of a "I'm going to do things differently than the last guy did because that's what I've been hired to do" thing.

I don't see it as any different than any new coach coming in and making changes to the roster. Yeah, some people are going to feel burned.

Sports for compensation is a tough gig. It's competitive, and only the best players get scholarships. Not everyone gets to go wherever they want to go AND get an athletic scholarship.

While I can be sympathetic to the student who didn't end up with a partial scholarship to VT, I don't think we need to pretend that the coaches aren't making hard decisions that affect people's lives.

To some degree I think this article is overblown. The person in the article found another scholarship. They say it happens all the time but didn't produce a lot of other examples. A better example would be someone who lost their scholarship and didn't find another one somewhere else. Clearly someone wants VT to feel some heat over it. Probably a UNC or NC State fan.

"So if you're a coach, and the previous coach gave a verbal commitment to eventually offer a scholarship to a player you don't think you'll use three years ago, you need to honor that for the next four years?"

Yes.

Almost the entirety of college athletes don't make it to the pros, and many use sports to pay for their education. If we tell them they're getting help with tuition and they plan the next 3 years of their lives around that, you can't tell me that it's ok to yank away a major portion of their budget because we decided to change a coach. That's treating student athletes as expendable employees, which is wrong.

Is a softball player having to go to Boston College on a 70% scholarship instead of VT on a 50% scholarship the the biggest injustice college sports? I would venture to say that it isn't, which is why the hyperbole in this story is a bit overblown. I'd say a bigger injustice was all those students who got fake degrees at UNC. This story isn't even about the biggest injustice in North Carolina college sports.

The author of the piece set out to push people's buttons, and they were successful in doing so. But in spite of saying "it happens all the time", they didn't bother to find any other examples. So do they really care about it as an issue? The NCAA doesn't even allow those early offers any more.

It doesn't seem to have been handled very well from the VT side, but softball scholarships are pretty competitive. Still, I'm glad it worked out for the student in the article.

What happened was wrong, and revoking an offer, even if verbal, is immoral. The fact that the NCAA doesn't allow it is irrelevant to my point, as is this one person's happy ending to the story. This can happen, and it shouldn't for no real reason.

These kids are getting to go for college for free (or at a substantial discount) because they're good at playing a game. Pardon me if I don't have much sympathy.

It's a transactional relationship to a large degree. Once on board the family element takes over. But it takes commitment from everyone involved for a healthy family. If VT isn't truly happy they should let the player know ASAP, and vice versa. Players don't get much heat any more for de-committing / flipping because fans are recognizing they should be able to do what's best for them. Why can't a coach do what's best for the success of the program? It's what they were hired to do after all.

She spoke with the coach at a softball tournament, sometime between when he was named coach on May 31st and when she got a letter from VT on July 23rd. I doubt he'd had a chance to go through the roster at that point, so to blast him for saying something positive a chance meeting is a bit overblown.

But I'm not going to come down like a ton of bricks on a coach because he was nice when cornered at a tournament by a prospective player. We don't even know exactly what he said, as this entire story is from the student's perspective.

Remember softball is allowed 12 scholarships. Currently there are 23 players on VT's softball team. I agree that if the coach told her that her money was safe that is the bad look. Softball coaches are no longer allowed to have direct contact with players until September 1 of their Junior year in high school so you won't have the problem of being off anybody's radar for 3 years anymore. This happens more than people know in the less funded sports and the coaches came up with the new rule so it would slow the recruiting process down in those sports.

Why do I need to remember they only have 12 scholarships? As you say, they may have discontinued such early commitments, but this girl was committed for 3 years. I don't care what her talent level is, if you have someone making plans essentially their entire high school years to come to your school because you offered them a scholarship, YOU HONOR THAT SHIT.

"How the ass pocket will be used, I do not know. Alls I know is, the ass pocket will be used."
- The BoD

So if you're a new softball coach, all your players for the next three years have already been selected for you? It should have been handled better, but I'd guess that when a coaching change is made, you might expect some changes to the makeup of the team.

I don't care. This girl has been planning on coming to Blacksburg for three years. The fact that grown men can play with teenager's lives to chase wins is ridiculous. I think when this happens in football it's fucked up, but even more so when it's a non-revenue sport. Whose to say that someone was coming to a school solely for their athletics? You're telling me that if a kid's dream was to come to VT for engineering, and sports just happened to be a conduit for that to happen, that it's just fine that complete adults throw their future into to the wind just because they are the new coach? This ain't the pros.

"How the ass pocket will be used, I do not know. Alls I know is, the ass pocket will be used."
- The BoD

Everything about college sports is chasing wins. The prior coach just got fired for not having enough of those.

Yes, it's all about wins, because if the team doesn't get enough of those, people on this forum get mad and stop sending money, buying tickets, buying shirts and hats, etc. In the case of "non-revenue" sports, the coach still gets fired if they don't produce wins, and fairly quickly.

No, it ain't fair. But winning and losing does count for something. Just look at how this board foams at the mouth if the coach doesn't win enough games, or doesn't win the right ones. The debate on this forum is already "How many more years does Fuente get? He hasn't won the ACC yet!" When the people (mainly us) start sending money regardless of wins or losses, then coaching changes will all be voluntary, and they may not feel quite as much pressure to win in their first three years.

I agree about doing the right thing, but a new coach should get to pick his scholarship players a year in advance. This student had time to line up another scholarship, and was able to do that. They should have called her, though.

I sort of see this one from both sides. It wasn't so much pulling a scholarship as pulling a verbal commitment for a future scholarship. The "dark side" was that she had to go to Boston College with a bigger scholarship.

Thank you so much for your input. You have changed the minds of everyone on this board. What would we do without you, Jack Crow?

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

I'm just over here laughing at being labeled as being in the previous coach's fan club. I don't pay enough attention to softball to even know his name without TKP. Still doesn't mean I can't have an opinion about how people are treated.

"How the ass pocket will be used, I do not know. Alls I know is, the ass pocket will be used."
- The BoD

For real. I didn't know diddly about the new guy, but now I only have this negative example to associate with him. Shoot, Scot Thomas is a close friend of my wife's family from growing up in Blacksburg. I've drank at PKs with him when I got invited out for their high school circle of friends "reunion". He's a cool guy. But he was part of the Blacksburg good ol' boy club and as far as the softball team winning recently, it was probably time for a fresh coach.

I never had an opinion about him at all, but a few years ago, I was eating at a Mexican restaurant in Bridgewater and in the booth behind me were some JMU guys, one of whom was obviously a JMU softball coach. They were poking fun at Thomas seeming to regard him as out of the loop or not up to snuff or something. They were yukkin' it up some and I was eating so I didn't hear all of it, but from then on I've wondered about their obvious disdain for his coaching. They beat us that year, I noticed that, and they seemed to know him personally. Wish him all the best, but like you said, probably time.

sometimes #2 happens and you just have to roll with it (hopefully not in it, though).

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

Sometimes the math on non-rev sports doesn't work out. My son plays lacrosse collegiality and there is a cost associated with it (private school vs in-state). There is a benefit for me ... he is more engaged in his studies

VT out of state 38k with 50% scholarship 19k
App State in state tuition 16k (including room & board)
BC $70k (not sure about rules mixing academic and athletic money)

So a 9th grade stud commits in football, to DREAM school, and then doesn't grow an inch or gain a much weight in high school and you still have to honor that commit if you get a new coach and he has a late blooming 4* stud that wants to commit but there are no available scholarships. Is there a problem with that?

Maybe not offer kids that are freshmen to begin with. I'm not saying tell coaches to stop doing it, I'm saying outlaw it. If you just frown on it, people will still do it. If the NCAA outlaws it...wait...nevermind. No. Seriously, stop laughing.

Still, it's a messed up situation that should have never been created.

"How the ass pocket will be used, I do not know. Alls I know is, the ass pocket will be used."
- The BoD

Yes, but softball (unlike football and basketball) isn't a head count sport, so all 23 of those players can be on some type of scholarship - full or partial - as long as Tech doesn't exceed 12.0 scholarships in the process.

While this is a bad look and unfortunate, I would have to say this is happens a lot. Every small ball parent I have talked to has said it is incredibly cut throat.

One particular parent had his boy going to Tech for baseball. New coach came in and pitchers not tossing 90+ are off the team or uncommitted. Boy was tossing 89 and had O&M athletic pedigree. Opted to play at Liberty. Played summer league. Great stats. Goes in the fall. Bunch of the kids were getting their logo apparel. He got his. Batting gloves came in. His were on 'backorder'. Coach told him to wait. After 3 weeks, asked coach when he would expect his. Coach broke news then that if he didn't get his gloves then he wouldn't be playing. This was after school year had started.

I've heard numerous other stories about how cutthroat it is. I think if you go and look at the players careers, you might be surprised how many ball players don't make it all 4 years at the college level at one school.

That definitely stinks, and makes me a little ill. Seems like at a minimum, it could have been handled better. She should have gotten a phone call, not a letter.

I'm sure some people think we should have stuck with the prior coach's verbal commitment, but o be fair to the new coach, though, if you're a new softball coach, you have to stay with all of the prior coach's verbal commits that were made verbally several years ago? Then what's the point in changing coaches?

For me, the problem is more with the timing and verbal nature of softball verbal offers. Like in all sports, offers aren't binding until there is something in writing from both sides. Recruits in softball likely change their minds sometimes as well. When you have a coaching change, I'd expect some of the offers might change.

All of these scholarships are funded by revenues generated by football, basketball, and donations. We're fortunate to be able to offer them, and those students are fortunate to receive them.

Of course it's horrible to pull a scholarship offer, I hate it for her. However one of the reasons VT does not have any NCAA recognized team sports championships- zero in any sport- is because we had good ole boy coaches that loves their cushy blacksburg paychecks and status quo too much. If this scholarship was pulled in favor of someone that can help us win a national championship in softball, I understand it- other teams have been playing by these rules much longer than VT.

Lets look at this from the coaches perspective. Does a coach GAIN job stability for honoring a scholarship for a player they don't want? No. If that player doesn't pan out or doesn't perform, it hurts the coach. Coaches don't get to coach if they don't succeed, and you can be damn sure that they will use every tool in their toolbox to succeed so they can continue to support their family.

Players can withdraw a verbal just like coaches can. Everyone knows the game

This is the same fallacy as "at-will" employment. Employees and employers do NOT have an even playing field, and neither do schools and commits. All the leverage is with the organization as they're not dependent on one individual, while athletes and employees very much are. Athletes, once they are told they are getting a scholarship, shouldn't need to indefinitely keep seeking other opportunities just in case the one they've been promised doesn't pan out.

The only game here is letting schools screw over prospective students at their own whim.

Hey, that's not fair. Some of us hide behind anonymous posts on TKP, too.

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

Why not be upfront with her and her family and say something (in person, not email) like this:

"Hey, I'll be upfront with you. I've been hired to turn around the program and you're a good player, but you don't fit my vision for the team I want to field. I think you'd have limited opportunities for playing time. Having said that, VT took your verbal commitment and you are absolutely welcome to come and join the team and see how it goes. I'll treat you the same as anyone else. If you want to look elsewhere, I'll help you find a spot"

That would be doing things the right way, in my opinion. And it would seem less likely to hurt recruiting ties.

I agree about the fact that he should have at least had the decency to pick up the phone. While being recruited players are called at an annoying rate (I stopped answering when I was in HS and I wasn't D1 level). If you can pick up the phone to try to convince a player to join your team, the least you can do is pick up the phone to rescind a scholarship offer.